Dead Ahead
by spearmintcrows
Summary: Emma & Co. venture into the Underworld and reunite with Hook only to find the damage has already been done. As they claw their way back to the Living, yet another obstacle tangles their path, one they could never have braced themselves for.


**A/N: I've had this idea in my head since we first found out about the Underworld , so this is basically me getting it on the page & taking a break from my longer fic ,** _ **Birds**_ **.**

 _Father tell me, we get what we deserve. Oh we get what we deserve, and way down we go._

Emma's eyes could barely settle on any bit of him when they'd stormed Hades' dungeon and reunited with Killian. Her eyes roamed restlessly between his torn clothes, disheveled hair, the gashes and swelling around his face. Every inch of him was ingrained with blood and grime. She feared her heart stopping altogether, suspended in the moment of their embrace, forcing herself to be gentle as she pushed back his sweat-soaked hair, leaning into his forehead.

He'd been sitting in chains, strung up on a column next to the River of Lost Souls, the tide shimmying its way up bit by bit. Hades had wanted him fully aware of the wrenching progress, the impending erasure of his very self, last moments charged with waning hope and waxing despair.

Emma had expected him to release a soft string of curses, a sigh, any brand of exhausted relief when they arrived, when he realized he would be saved. It was too painful to appreciate the irony, the way he was the dead one in their ragtag family, and yet he was utterly convinced they were the apparitions.

"Gods, not this. Anything but this." He slammed his head back into the pillar, eyes shut tight against the approaching ensemble. "Have some scrap of mercy and sink me under already."

"Killian." Emma couldn't contain herself, reaching out to touch his face first, as gingerly as she could manage, fingertips light against the twilight of bruises across his jaw. "Killian, we came. Look at me. We're here for you. You're found."

But he wouldn't allow her gaze.

"I deserve this, I know I do. I didn't need the Underworld to prove me that." He whispered.

"What is he talking about?" Snow asked. Her family had been giving them space, not wanting to overwhelm Killian after all the trauma he'd been through. But now she glided forward, stopping just short of them.

"He doesn't think we're real." Regina called back. Her hands were up, struggling to keep the River at bay. Her magic glowed sharply in the greenlit cavern, reflected in the coaxing tide. "He thinks we're part of his punishment."

"Punishment." David spat. "This isn't justice, this isn't the place for that. This is just Hade's playground."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure it feels much less like playtime to the toys." She shot back wryly. "Emma, I can't hold back a force of this magnitude for much longer. Unless you want us all to be swimming bits of amnesia, hurry. Grab the pirate. We can convince him of our substance later."

Emma nodded, a quick dip of her chin, eyes never leaving Hook's. She reached down to his shackled wrists, magicking the binds away, chains falling heavily to the grey stone beneath them. Immediately, he collapsed, Emma only partially successful in not letting him crumble to the ground. Everyone except Regina rushed forward, but Snow and Henry made it first. They helped steady him, leaning against Emma. The group began to cluster, hovering in case Killian should give out again.

"We're getting you out of here, Hook." Emma murmured, hand slipping down to interlace their fingers. He flinched at the contact, and she swallowed hard, picking up an internal mantra: _it's not him. It's not you. He's confused_. After a few terrible moments, he allowed the contact. His eyes were open now, but resolutely downcast.

"If I'm to wander aimlessly the rest of my miserable afterlife, I may as well take any comfort I can, artificiality be damned." He said to himself.

"Shhh." Emma's voice was pitched low and soothing despite the panic threatening to close her throat. She'd been so intent on finding him, she never stopped to think about what of him there was to be found.

"Hang in there, mate." David said. He gripped Killian's shoulder in solidarity, causing him to sigh wearily. David then drifted to Mary Margaret's side, the knuckles of their linked hands blanched white in their worry.

"Ready to go, Mom?" Henry asked as they fell into step with Regina. Her entire frame was trembling with the effort it took to fight back the ceaseless tide.

Robin moved to settle his arms on her shoulders, bracing her against his steady form. He ducked a kiss to her temple as she nodded in answer to Henry.

"I can't hold this much longer. Magic is too finicky down here. I can feel it, how it wants to take everything from me." There was a precarious mixture of awe and fear, her brows furrowed as her eyes took on the light of the water. "In a second, I'm going to completely drop it. Emma, you need to take my hand immediately and do exactly as we talked about. Can you do that?"

Emma glanced at her nearly unrecognizable love, slumped heavily into her shoulder. She pressed him lightly against her, hand feathering through his hair, before gesturing to her mother.

"Don't." She almost didn't—almost halted at the naked plea in his defeated voice. But she transferred him to Snow.

"Soon." She promised. She drew up close to Regina. In any other circumstance, she'd quip about them holding hands and braiding each other's hair for the Greater Good, but there was too much peril in the moment.

"Now." Regina shouted.

All at once, her magic shattered audibly, almost tangibly, immediately overtaken by the hungry river. She flung her hand out to Emma, overshooting and smacking into her chest in her haste. Emma scrambled to grasp her hand, linking their fingers with a ferocity driven by terror. If they didn't pull this off, they would all cease to exist in any way that mattered. Their eternities would be spent as strangers to each other and themselves, floating along the Lazy River of Hell.

Their power merged, Regina's Armageddon violet twisting into Emma's wildfire grey, churning until pure lavender light enveloped the group. They disappeared on a held breath, one they didn't release until they were sure of safe ground.

"I was beginning to worry." Gold said archly from his perch on the prow of the stolen ferry.

"I doubt it." David had barely caught his breath as he shot him down.

"Well, then, let's not dawdle, dearies." He ignored him, unbothered, stepping into the boat with sure footing. "I'm eager to return to my wife in one, fully alive piece."

"Poor unfortunate soul." Regina muttered.

Emma had fallen straight back into Killian's orbit the second she was sure they'd made it in the clear. There was no separating them now.

"Bloody hell." He uttered.

"Not for long." She smiled wanly, rubbing her thumb into the back of his hand.

But he continued to stare, and she picked up that Gold was the object of his fixation.

"Yes, Gold's here." She said. "Not out of the pureness of his heart, of course, but he aided our rescue mission."

He fell to his knees for the second time.

"Hook!"

He gripped her outstretched arm, fingers digging in almost painfully. When he looked up, there were tears running rough tracks through the filthy smears on his cheeks.

"Real." He said in wonder and agony. "It's real. The Crocodile could never appear in any of my visions of relief."

Emma felt tears begin to slip down her own cheeks as she watched the broken acceptance blossom on his face. Suddenly the grip on her arm shifted, him using her reach as leverage to pull himself up and pull her toward him. He burrowed his face in her hair, breathing her in, and she felt the strength of his sobs through their tight embrace.

"Oh." She huffed out. Everything was too much, and somehow not enough. She wanted to pull him closer, resented the tiny atoms that took up space between them.

"I hate to cut this truly moving reunion short, but we are gravely lacking the luxury of time."

"Shut up, Gold." Emma bit. Every trace of harshness left her visage as she returned her gaze to Killian. "He's right, though. We need to flee and flee fast. To buy us time—never mind explanations, but we started something big, Killian."

He nodded, looking dazed, allowing her to tug him toward the ferry. Snow and Charming took the back, and Regina, Robin, and Henry stood by to let Emma and Killian pass. They meant to nestle them in the middle, keep Killian in the protected heart of the boat as they drifted home.

Gold stopped them short.

"There's a caveat."

"What are you talking about? Move aside. You said so. We don't have time for this." Emma felt the unsteady prick of magic in her palms. Her control had grown so much despite her enormous emotions, but she was worn out with exertion and fury.

"Necessary evil, I assure you. Once you get aboard, you cannot, for any reason great or small, look upon the pirate."

"What."

"Those tied by True Love's power are forbidden to gaze upon each other once their journey to the living realm is underway. If you so much as peek at him in your peripherals, his incorporeal form will dissipate, forever detached from his body, and you will not look upon each other again in this life or any other."

Emma's stomach dropped in one fell swoop. "You're kidding me."

"And where exactly did you pick up this little nugget?" Snow asked frostily.

"If you're implying I'm fabricating this ridiculous rule, don't be. The Underworld works in arbitrary ways. While I was seeking to—ah, forcibly dissolve—my contract with Hades, I stumbled upon a slew of other such documents. Relevantly, the contract of Orpheus and Eurydice. It seems Hades used it as a precedent for all True Loves to follow."

"What happened to them?" Henry asked.

"Orpheus looked back." Emma whispered. "And lost Eurydice, forever. After all that he went through to get her back. He was so afraid of losing her, he couldn't help but convince himself she was really there. That's the version I know, anyways."

"And it's unsettlingly close to the truth, for you." Gold replied. "Now we really must go. No matter the temptation, you cannot look back."

"Alright." She said quietly. This should be easy, after all they'd done. Just don't look. But she knew it would be another kind of hell, a drawn out, teasing, terrifying one. Because already, her eyes cast down, she wanted to never let Killian out of her sight again.

He squeezed her hand as she raised a leg over the side of the ferry.

"You've been so strong, Swan. A bloody marvel. You can do this." He laughed, something weak and made short by a wracking cough that had tears gathering once more in her eyes. Even now, when he was broken and bleeding and not altogether There, even now he tried to find light for her. "I'll need a minute until I'm devilishly handsome again, anyways. Hades did quite a number on me."

"You could never be anything but." She jibed back as best she could. Once they were on board, she shut her eyes tightly, heart already racing. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair she could lose him all over again because of some stupid whim of Hades'. The whole Underworld was a gimmick constructed for a bored mythical figure, and she hated it. She hated him.

"Hush, now." Killian murmured into her ear, and she realized she was crying angrily.

"I'm so sorry, baby." Snow said, voice close as Emma felt a gentle pressure on her back. "It'll all be over soon. We'll be home soon."

"I'm going to need several stiff drinks after this." Someone murmured, too low to discern. She agreed. Wholeheartedly.

Which was funny, considering—she was about to have only half of her heart. But that had to wait until the border of the Living. Only on the precipice of life and death could her heart be split in two.

The boat creaked with the added weight of Regina, Robin, and Henry, and soon they were moving slowly through the water.

"I'm so sorry." She repeated her mother's words, but they weren't a comfort. They were something heavier, full of thorns that dug into her memory. "God, for it all. For dragging you back to life, lying to you, kill—" She couldn't even finish.

"Hush." He said again. This time it was laced with exhaustion, grief, the spectre of anger. "Not now, love. Let's just be, for the time being."

She felt him make space for her, and she practically dove for it, wrapping her arms round him and settling into his chest with a sigh. She felt him tense before relaxing, lips buried next to her ear.

"How much do you hurt?" She asked.

"It matters not."

Her fingers found imaginary patterns along the ripped fabric of his vest. "I wish I could heal you, but magic doesn't work reliably here, and not at all in transit."

"It's alright, Emma. You've done more than enough." He leaned fully into the bottom of the boat, pulling her down between his legs so they rested against each other. The last of her adrenaline faded between the solid warmth of him beneath her and the soft lapping of the water against the sides of the boat. "Does anyone care to tell me how you managed to slip by Hades and his Hellbeast?"

"Cerberus? Hercules and I destroyed him with help from a friend." Mary Margaret spoke up.

"Hercules?" The jump in his voice told her one brow was raised. "The demigod?"

"We were friends in our youth." She explained. "He happened down here, ah, prematurely, during a quest of labours. Cerberus was the last stepping stone until he could move on."

"If that isn't a wild twist of fate."

"I know."

"So that accounts for the dreaded Hound, then—what about our favourite Hothead?"

"We kind of started a revolution." Henry said.

"Excuse me?"

"We, uh, we got together a group of, um, dissatisfied townsfolk, and they're making their displeasure known very…passionately. It was pretty awesome." Of course her son would describe inciting almost literal hellraising as "pretty awesome."

"Your brother led the charge, giving us our window to find you." Emma said. She felt the sharp intake of breath.

"Liam? Is here?" The words came out softened with reverence despite the almost brutal intensity underneath them.

She nodded into him. "He was. We didn't—there wasn't much chance to talk. But he said he was grateful he was here to protect you now, when he couldn't before. I think—I think you were his unfinished business."

"He was never at fault."

She wanted to agree with him, to soothe him as best she could, but the truth was she only knew snippets of Liam and Killian's childhood and their adventures as young men on the high seas. She wouldn't belittle the matter by telling him what she thought he might want to hear. She tried for her own opinion instead.

"I think he knew what happened after, when you were on your own. I think he wanted to make sure you made it through okay before moving on."

"You mean to say—you think he witnessed my exploits as Captain Hook?" There was that self-loathing that glossed his words so frequently when he talked about himself.

"I mean to say, I think he saw how much pain you were in."

"So he's out there? Back on those shores?" Killian said after a silence. She felt him tense against her. "I shouldn't leave without seeing him. I should be by his side."

"With all due respect to your centuries-brewing brotherhood guilt complex, if you so much as move to leave this boat I will smite you where you sit, Guyliner." Regina said dryly, though not unkindly. "We are literally in the process of going to Hell and back for you, if you hadn't picked up on it."

He only made a gruff noise in the back of his throat in reply, forcing himself to relax back into the cutting side of the boat. Emma desperately wanted to smooth away the grimace she knew would be etched into his lips.

"This is so hard." She murmured, mostly to herself. She dug her fingers into the splintery surface of the bottom of the boat, needing to ground herself.

"Aye?" He asked absently, likely hung up on the impossible proximity to his lost brother.

"I thought it would ruin me to find you—I knew Hades wouldn't leave you unharmed, he promised as much. But I never thought—I never imagined _not_ seeing you would be worse."

"Imagine my despair when the glimpse of my Saviour was taken away as surely as it came." She laughed lightly, wondering at the image they must make, pressed together and resolutely avoiding looking at each other. "Of course, you are always an easy sight to behold and one that pains to be taken away."

"Sweet talker." Emma muttered teasingly as she felt the slow burn of blush rise to the apples of her cheeks.

He merely hummed in response.

She desperately wanted to open her eyes, to roam the curves and edges of him that had been far too scant in the last weeks. She wanted to be a balm to all the kinds of hurt nestled inside of him. And she wanted to see it, though it would kill her—the unspoken anger that lay dormant but vital between them. The anger that coiled from all the lies and sins and darknesses they'd each had their share of and then some. She wanted it to crash over them, red and screaming as it must before they could really exist together again.

But none of those things were possible. Not until they arrived again, as they always seemed to, on the brink of life and death.

So for now, Emma stole comfort in the closeness of him, the solidness of his warmth. She listened to the others talk in low hums punctuated by the lapping of the water, the crispness of the winds. Her fingertips crinkled in the fabric of his vest worn ragged with exertion and, likely, torture. In return, the tension slowly bled out of his frame and he fully melted into her, chin resting on her shoulder, fingers and hook lax at her thighs. The seconds weaved together into minutes, an hour, gently tugging the ferry along.

They did as they always did.

They held on.


End file.
